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About 2)
This is one of those scenarios where you need to read it thru couple of times to know which part to skip and which parts to not skip. I certainly don't recommend anyone to run this without prepping.
About 3)
Developer
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About 2)
This is one of those scenarios where you need to read it thru couple of times to know which part to skip and which parts to not skip. I certainly don't recommend anyone to run this without prepping.
About 3)
** spoiler omitted **
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What a fantastic scenario - ran it tonight and everyone thought it was a real little gem!
Some more seasonal adventures like this would be amazing, frankly thins thing was We Be Goblins level of entertainment.
Loved it :)
I did bump against some of the same issues Shannon above has raised.
Per spoiler one - There was no way of knowing for certain, so it was merely 'alluded to', people were happy with that.
Per spoiler two - we had the same question come up and that's similar to how I handled it.
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I ran this last night at subtier 1-2 with the 4 player adjustment. They easily bypassed the optional encounters, and we finished in a little under 2-1/2 hours (and that's with me taking the time to describe the festival, have random NPCs interact with them, etc.).
While the atmosphere and festival were good, the combat encounters were extremely disappointing, especially the final one. Having your "boss" as a 5-hp CR 1/2 creature just doesn't cut it in my book. I think my players were surprised after the final fight, thinking it was a prelude to the real final area. It does feel like there should have been a second, tougher fight at the end.
Foreshadowing is only effective if there's a decent payoff for it. No matter how sinister you make the other enemies and events seem, if an average group of PCs can handily defeat the final encounter in 1-2 rounds without breaking a sweat, it's going to leave people unsatisfied.
Were it not for the way-too-easy combats, I'd probably run this one again; as it is, it's going into my vault to be forgotten about.
(BTW with regard to the dead druid Elm--I figure his nature bond was taking the Plant domain, not having an animal companion.)
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We had fun playing this the day before Halloween. Very flavorful. Our GM brought a big bag of oranges to pass out at both tables, and have people draw on them to show what we carved. And he brought those little pumpkin shaped candy corns to use as minis when the jack-o-lanterns attacked us.
Definitely agree that this is a very short one, and the fights were way too easy. It didn't help that we had 14 players at two tables, so both were 7 player groups. And our table, at the higher tier, had 4 pets with our 7 PCs (an eidolon and 3 familiars).
Coincidentally, right after playing, I was looking through some books with one of the other players, and we found the Leshy Warden druid archetype, which we assumed was the explanation for the NPC leshy and dead druid in the adventure.
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Starts with an uneventful briefing, the PC take the masked servants in stride. There is not a knowledge(local):Galt check, I think volunteering some background info as the GM would have helped the players understand some of the themes.
Players get a room at the inn, play the flute and then go carve some pumpkins. Talk to Armeline, but fail the diplomacy check. Players enjoyed mingling with the villagers.
The Cleric asking them to go help the constable broke immersion, need to play up his trusting/pragmatic nature more?
Ranger rocked a 24 survival when checking out Elms body, so I gave him a track to the pumpkin patch, evidence of an ambush, and part of the spiral path. With this info they almost skipped the house... but between my panicked look, the constable's urging that they don't wandering (truth comes out they are still a suspect), and the discussion that it is half an hour back to town and the house is only 50ft away; they decided to check out the house...
They showed up and saved the Cleric. Forget to include the fear aura on the jack-o-lantern, this made the fight end quickly.
Found Feather Seed at the pumpkin patch. Ranger talks Sylvan and aced the know(nature). Feather leads them to the swamp.
Now this is like 1.5hr in and these guys are on the way to the last fight, so I went rebel and allowed them to ambush the Fiery Vengeance monsters on their way to town. forgive me.
They show up in the swamp, kill the skeletons, fail know(religion) to get information about the haunt. New player RP suggests they bury the skeleton; rolls knowledge(religion) and passes, I provide info that if your going to bury them on consecrated ground would be going the extra mile.
Return to town, recruited Armeline with the bonuses and enjoyed the free stay at the inn. There was a light in the Players eyes when the innkeep refunded them their coin.
Still finish early. Almost have time to carve pumpkins in a 4 hr slot.
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I ran this higher tier. Here's how it went:
Everyone knew about Galt more than me as somewhat new gm, so I didn't have to brief them much extra. I usually like to give extra background info about locations anyway.
Funnies part of the scenario was 4 experienced sailors rowing up the river for 10 days to take PCs to village.
I printed some pumpkins on paper and made players draw their carved pumpkins.
They somehow all rolled low on skill checks about clues and didn't notice anything funny and priest died during night because of that.
One player was toying with the idea to escape during night from inn arrest to investigate murder, because he was trying to fill some boon or faction thing. (not sure what it was) But they decided to wait till morning and thus avoided fighting the guards.
After facing pumpkins at field I forgot fear aura as well at first, but made them roll saves middle of fight anyways. They had no trouble speaking to leshy, since they had couple people who knew the language.
One of the party members had ability to make possessed pumpkin their servant and he had his own possessed gourd under his control rest of the scenario.
At the ruins one player made their phantom stealth check to investigate ruins and saw skeletons so I allowed them to make an ambush and surprise round.
They smashed the glowing pumpkin to make consecrated ground under the skeletons and asked if they fulfilled goal to destroy haunt permanently. And I told them they don't notice anything indicating anything like that happening, so I let them roll religion check and they rolled high, so I gave them instructions to bury the bones to destroy it permanently.
Finally at the town after everything happened they finally try recruit Armeline and just barely succeeded with the skill check rolling exact amount needed.
All in all they thought it was somewhat difficult scenario with all the investigation going on and skill checks needed to fullfil goals. Enemies weren't that much of a problem, but they came close losing both prestiges, but still managed to earn both.
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Reading the scenario i am NOT happy with the dues ex machina of convincing the sherif to let you wander around is the only way to prevent one of the deaths. I know characters that could sneak out the back door with 4 kegs of ale and a full picinic spread before the diplomancer can say "if it please the court..."
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I'm running this on 11/9, and I'm putting together a graphic decision tree to help me understand the possible ways that players can go through this scenario depending on their various decisions. I'll post that along with a map for Elm's House (pp. 9-10) at PFSPrep when I'm done.
Not if I beat you to it. :)
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Ran this last night. The players really enjoyed the story, and the Halloween theme. Was a pity I was not able to run it last weekend.
Unfortunately, most of the players in my local PFS are of the min-maxer type, so they were able to blast through the skill checks quite easily, and the combats were super trivial. We actually finished the whole scenario in just under three hours, including wrap up and extra dialogue I added at the end with Venture-Captain Petalungro.
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Ran this yesterday (High 4 player). With a Paladin of Shelyn leading the social charge, the PCs made all the right choices, and even taking our time we finished in just over 3 hours.
The only bit that threw me was putting Bertinard's memories/etc. after the Feather Seed encounter - the players were convinced that they had to immediately go hunt for the "source" after befriending Feather Seed (again rather quickly due to a highly social party).
The final combat was a bit brutal for the PCs due to some unlucky tactical choices, but people pitched in to have the Paladin raised from the dead at the hands of the Burning Hag.
Great scenario and fun to GM. Will post a review of it to the product page soon too!
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I'm running this Wed. night, and I think I understand all the possible PC choices and their effects, except for exactly what happens if the PC are put under house arrest and then escape by attacking their guards. It looks like they're somehow supposed to get to Bertinard's house after he's been murdered, but I'm not sure how they know to go there. Any thoughts? Anyone's PCs try this? Mind you, I think it's unlikely things will go this way, but it helps to be prepared.
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I felt that a few sections were a bit laconic, and could use some more extensive prose descriptions. I wrote some, and put them up on pfsprep as prose addenda. The specific sections I wrote were the party's arrival in Rosehaven, Armeline's "harrowing escape", Bertinard's speech to commence Mercylight, and the corpse of Druid Elm.
I have a feeling Palmer ran into page limitations. That's a shame, because the speeches in particular would be a challenge to improvise in a way that really gives a sense of atmosphere. I hope that my addenda will help other GMs to establish a sense of atmosphere, that Rosehaven is a village of people rather than NPCs waiting for the Pathfinders to show up.
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I have a feeling Palmer ran into page limitations. That's a shame, because the speeches in particular would be a challenge to improvise in a way that really gives a sense of atmosphere. I hope that my addenda will help other GMs to establish a sense of atmosphere, that Rosehaven is a village of people rather than NPCs waiting for the Pathfinders to show up.
I had the same reaction after prepping this. I wish I had had your prose addendum when I ran it - very well done!
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I did my decision tree, and it's over at PFSPREP. However, I'm a little uncertain about the timeline of events. Here's what I think is going on:
9:00 am - arrive at Rosehaven, 1 hour before start of festival
10 am - start of festival
11:30 am - group looking for pumpkins returns from Elm's farm
1 pm - Constable and PCs arrive at Elm's farm
If the PCs return to Rosehaven, they should get there around 3 pm
If they go to Bertinard's house, they should get there around 5 pm
7:00 pm - get to Pumpkin Patch if the PCs go there directly from the Bertinard's house
10:00 pm - get to Haunted Mire if the PCs go there directly from the Pumpkin Patch. By this time, they will have been on their feet for 11 hours, so a Forced March check might be in order.
Here's one thing that I'm very unsure about. As I understand the scenario, if the PCs go directly from the Pumpkin Patch to the Haunted Mire and defeat the baddies there, the Fiery Vengeance attack on Rosehaven never takes place. So, the Fiery Vengeance event couldn't occur before 11 pm or so at the earliest.
If the Fiery Vengeance event does take place, the PCs have the option of going to the Haunted Mire immediately, arriving there around 1 am or so, or waiting until daylight.
Does this all seem about right?
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LOL... a player playing a kitsune in human form decided to carve "a cartoonish looking kitsune" as their pumpkin...
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9:00 am - arrive at Rosehaven, 1 hour before start of festivalFor a "horror" scenario I'd adjust that timeline considerably so the majority of the action goes on in the dark.
Yes, I assumed the festival started at sunset. Leading to a long frightening night (players achieved maximum skill-checks), returning to the village victorious with the morning sun.
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Yes, I assumed the festival started at sunset. Leading to a long frightening night (players achieved maximum skill-checks), returning to the village victorious with the morning sun.9:00 am - arrive at Rosehaven, 1 hour before start of festivalFor a "horror" scenario I'd adjust that timeline considerably so the majority of the action goes on in the dark.
For what it's worth, VC Petulengro tells the PCs that they'll "arrive in Rosehaven in the morning of the first day of the festival" (p. 4.) And the festival starts one hour after the PCs arrive (p. 5).
I too like the idea of everything taking place at night. Did other folks do this when GMing?
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For what it's worth, VC Petulengro tells the PCs that they'll "arrive in Rosehaven in the morning of the first day of the festival" (p. 4.) And the festival starts one hour after the PCs arrive (p. 5).
I too like the idea of everything taking place at night. Did other folks do this when GMing?
Well technically 11:59 is still morning which for your schedule puts Bertrand's house at 8.
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TMW the halfling on your table carves his pumpkin into a scary mask, cuts the bottom out, and wears it like a mask for the rest of the scenario...
How do you NOT arrest them? Mine made the checks in the house and I still arrested them, because the rumors specifically state that they'd seen a pumpkin headed halfling running around.
(I let the mix-up come to light in time to save the priest. Don't worry.)
A good scenario, but I wish more of the story would come out. It felt like, because my players did well, they missed out on half of the stuff going on. And the priest holding a town meeting without them... There was plenty of great stuff in the scenario, but sometimes felt like the PCs did not get to hear it.
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Following up on a session I GMed a little while ago.
I ran the session the way, it turns out, that progers also felt it should--as per his decision tree. When my PCs didn't make the early checks and didn't want to talk themselves out of house arrest, bad stuff happened. (Fiery Vengeance!)
The GM running the other table made a pretty coherent argument that this is not how the author intended things to be run, though. On page 11, there is text reading:
Skip the Attack on Bertinard’s Home encounter below, and move to The Second Murder encounter on page 14. If they allow themselves to be arrested, skip to the Fiery Vengeance encounter on page 17, at which point the constable releases them, observing that no matter the Pathfinders’ crimes, nobody deserves to die during the terrible attack.
I read this as indicating that if the PCs are either house arrested or attack the guards and are arrested and consigned to jail, you move to Fiery Vengeance. That's also how the excellent flowchart reads. My compatriot argues that by "Arrested" the author instead meant that only if the PCs fight the guards and are sent to jail should you go straight to burnination.
I think that's a reasonable interpretation now that he's mentioned it, but it wasn't at all how I read the scenario, and it looks like I'm not alone.
I'm going to run this game Saturday and I think I've got everything ready. Since it's not a true PFS game, but just a piece inserted in a home-brew, I took the liberty to make that last encounter a little more challenging. I've got my decision-tree, time table and all. I'm feeling pretty confident.
There's one thing I don't understand, however. Is that haunt supposed to be persistent? I've been reading the haunt rules over and over again and I still can't wrap my head around it. I'm assuming if it's not persistent, it means only characters within the 10' radius at the beginning of the effect will be affected, right? Or is it only the character in the area when it's triggered? Either way, other people approaching in the next round wouldn't need to save against it. If that's the case, if a player gets out of the range of the haunt, does the effect on them end, or do they still have to go through the whole minute of illusory flames and debuffs? I have my own interpretation, but I'd rather be sure and avoid an argument with players.
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Does anyone know how the whisperwort fits into this scenario? What is causing the whisperwort to grow?
Are the jack-o’-lantern/POSSESSED GOURDS leaving the whisperwort? Why is the whisperwort going to Bertinards house in a spiral around the city?
Fairy Circle syndrome? Plants grow in strange patterns that are obviously significant!
There's probably an army of resolute termites building Spirals of Korada underground and the plants just follow them. But I don't think that answer helps the PCs.
(Really, there's something emanating from the center of the spiral that is somehow twisting the whisperwort into shape, almost as if it is growing along a leyline-like effect or something.)